Summary: Love is more than a four letter word, so how can I live it out?

“We should love one another.” Seems obvious. That is the right Christian thing to do. But we live in the real world, where resentments, anger, grudges, violence, dominates. Look around, daily we hear stories of people not being loved - killed, raped, divorced, bullied, sued, terrorized, abused, road rage and it happens to everyone, whether u are at home, office, school, Christian or not. Things are not all rosy within churches either, if you read the pages of the Bible, you’ll find what happens in the real world also happens in the lives of Christian. People are not getting along with each other. People are living with hatred, which the Bible equates as murder in their hearts. It seems like our world is overrun with the Cain syndrome. In short, real Christian love is rare. That’s a real problem. We have so few models of real Christian love. WE hardly know what real Christian love is all about.

Best thing we can do is look at an out of this world example.

First look at Jesus Christ – he showed us and taught what real Christian love is –

“16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”

10 yr old boy was failing math - parents did everything - hired tutors - finally last option send him to Catholic school. Right on the first day of school he began to spend every nite pouring over his books. When the 1st report card came back, he had an A for math. So the parents were curious "what made the diff." they asked. "The nuns, textbooks?" "Well, i never took math seriously but the 1st day I walked in

to math class I saw this guy nailed to a plus sign. I knew then they meant business."

This is just it Jesus meant business when he showed us what love is. He was nailed to cross cuz he was serious about sin, and how it can kill off any hope of relationship with people.

We broke all the rules and Jesus could have spent eternity counting all our infractions, mistakes, every sin – but what did he do instead to communicate love to His family, whom the Father calls His children… Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. He chose to forgive, to love with action, coming and die in our place. So the Bible teaches us in 1 John 2:2 “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Parents u love your kids don’t u? Lay down your life for them don’t u? I have 4 kids. Sometimes they drive me up the wall, but I love them. As babies I love them somewhat like this: bathe them, feed them, play with them, sing to them, acquire another skill BSL – baby as second language “ga ga”, rock them to sleep, when they cry for help u are there to pick them up, watch ‘em like a hawk if they waddle to close to danger, in other words u have no life – u lay down your life, right? Laying down your life does not mean u smother them… it means giving them room to fail too. Picture this, as they learn to walk, u don’t say to them, oh u fell down, poor little bump hurts. U fell again and again and again. That’s too bad. This means you are walking impaired. OK because you can’t do this walking thing right, strap u down to a wheelchair for life. No one does that, right?

Love here means allowing for growth through failure, looking towards future potential. Love means not expecting that other people will get it, the first time. Or second time or third time. Love means forgiving the baby steps people take in their journey. Yes - love means knowing in the heart people are worth it, and they are coming along for the ride but not many are good drivers, they maybe good at backseat driving. Many are just hanging out the “N” or “L” sign. People are on a journey they have not arrived yet! So hard to think that way when Christian people let u down. It is even harder when u think they are mature enuff to not let u down in such a big way, but people do, and will continue to do so… because they are not gods. Look at Jesus now, he looked towards future potential, towards joy as he endured suffering of people’s sins (Heb.12).